Stealing Methos' Journal
by Julie the Tall Terror
Summary: The Watchers think their former employee, Adam Pierson, has stolen their Chronicles. Methos just wants them to give his journals back. Finding out that the Watchers are on to his real identity makes everything more complicated. Set in 1998.


Title: Stealing Methos' Journal

Author: Julie the Tall Terror

Summary: The Watchers think their former employee, Adam Pierson, has stolen their Chronicles. Methos just wants them to give his journals back. Set in 1998.

Methos and canon Watchers (Dr. Amy Zoll from the Watchers CD and mentions of Don Salzar and Joe Dawson) and assorted OC Watchers.

Warning: unbetaed! Let me know of about spelling and grammar errors please.

Also, please drop me a review :)

Disclaimer Whatever: don't own it

This story can stand alone or could be seen as a prequel to my other Highlander stories. It takes place a few weeks after the sixth season episode, "Indiscretions." This story was inspired by the following excerpt from the Watcher CD that was put on the Highlander Season 5 DVD box set after the series ended.

...o0o...

From Dr. Amy Zoll's deposition to the Watcher Tribunal, 20 December 1996.

_"...This is a complete farce. Not to mention a waste of time and money. Court martialing Adam Pierson after he's gone - what's that going to achieve? Get a clue, he doesn't even exist. He's not going to give a damn what you do. All this to make yourselves feel better that he had you looking like fools for over a decade? So you find him guilty - then what? Drum him out of the Watchers? He's been gone nearly a year already. How about the old Treason penalty? You could send someone out to whack the world's oldest immortal- so much for that kinder, gentler, Watcher Organization you were trying to create. Look, I'm as pissed at the guy as you are. Maybe more - you don't have to undo the damage he's done to the Chronicles. Methos played us for a bunch of saps. Good for him. But a big show trial won't do anything but soothe your bruised egos." _

...o0o...

November 1998

Methos could tell this was going to be a bad day. After 5,000 years of living, you learn to read the signs. From the moment he woke, odd things began to go wrong. The water pressure in the shower was mysteriously low, his razor fell into the toilet and the toaster unexpectedly burnt his last two slices of bread. He hated burnt food. Then on the way out to his car, he had to go back because he forgot to set the house alarm. Now running late, he was too rushed to notice that his car was out of petrol until his Range Rover began to gasp and sputter.

Why did he always forget these things when he was in a hurry? Of course, he wasn't close enough to a fuel station and had to settle for tapping the bumper of a parked car to make room to jump the curb onto a sidewalk before his car totally quit on him. Thankfully, the car he'd shoved was in neutral, the way the French were taught to park their vehicles. Legal parking was scarce, so pushing other cars about to make room for yours wasn't uncommon. The sidewalk was better than the middle of the road and another nearby car was perched on the same sidewalk for lack of parking. Typical behavior for Parisians in this congested city. He had two choices, walk the next five blocks to get some fuel or walk two blocks to a metro station and go on to the auction house. At best, he'd return to find a ticket, at worst his car would be towed.

The metro would be quicker and he was now going to be very late. However, the appeal of possibly finding some of his old things at the antiques auction was becoming less and less important as his mood worsened. With the way this day was going there either wouldn't be anything of his there or he'd be outbid and watch someone else take his belongings. Better to not know at this point.

With a frustrated sigh, Methos set out to obtain some petrol. As the fog turned into a misty rain on his way back to his car, he knew the wisest choice would be to just crawl back in bed and wait for this miserable day to end. It really shouldn't surprise him to find that wouldn't be an option.

Someone broke into his home while he was out.

Methos warily stepped towards the door listening for any sound. It wasn't an Immortal, he'd have felt them by now, but it didn't mean no one was there. He pulled a firearm out of a holster around his ankle and cautiously opened the door.

The burglars were good, he had to give them that. They'd disabled his alarm very neatly and almost made it look like no one had picked the lock. But little things like the way his doorstep rug was too perfectly lined up (he always left it crooked) and the lights were all off (he'd been in such a hurry he'd left the living room lamp on this morning) gave it away.

After satisfying himself that no one was hiding inside, Methos began investigating what happened. However, the rooms appeared exactly as he left them and his electronics were all present. Nothing obviously moved, nothing broken. Not even the dust was disturbed on the top of his computer monitor. The antiques scattered about were also untouched. His spare sword was still in the umbrella stand, too. Not the type of thieves interested in pawning anything, then. He next pulled out a small firebox under his bed to check his stash of emergency cash (necessary when he needed to make untraceable purchases or travel). It was undisturbed.

So, they weren't after money either. Something had to be missing, but he couldn't see what. They'd been careful to hide that they'd ever been here. Either they knew exactly what they were looking for and didn't need to shuffle things about in their search, or they didn't find what they wanted at a glance or just weren't there to steal.

Was his house bugged?

Methos then began to thoroughly tear apart his own home hunting for surveillance devices. He examined every place he thought could disguise a camera or microphone. Under, behind and inside the furniture. Nothing. Retrieving a short ladder from his outside shed, he examined the high ceilings' crown molding and the light fixtures of every room. Again nothing. After that he pulled apart his house telephone, unscrewed the casings of his television and pulled apart the DVD player.

He crawled under his desk to haul out the CPU tower resting on the floor. While he was opening it, he considered whether a listening device might be hiding inside a pen cap or in his remote control. It was then that Methos discovered what _was_ missing. The cardboard box resting next to the CPU was empty.

His journals were gone.

Well, not _all _his journals. Most of his surviving original volumes and oldest copies resided in a high security, climate controlled, and insect free vault. He'd been on the road with no permanent address for the past year, so he'd arranged for new storage for the massive number of books that made up his life's journal. After the way Kalas found him a few years ago, it seemed best. Now that he once again was renting a house in Paris, he kept only his current volume and whatever he was copying with him.

A large pottery jar containing five papyrus scrolls was supposed to be nestled amongst a few towels (all he'd had on hand for padding). They were some of his many journal volumes he'd been forced to abandon in bad times. In the last few years, since leaving the Watchers, he'd made it his mission to find his missing books. Last week, he'd retrieved these scrolls from the vault to type them up into digital form. Written only 1,600 years ago, he didn't consider them old and they were in excellent condition, but fragile all the same. He'd carried them about for a thousand years or so before needing to leave them, more jars of even older scrolls and a pallet's worth of clay tablets behind in the dry desert.

He hadn't expected it to take him seven hundred years and countless forays into the sand to relocate that blasted cave.

When he was in Egypt with Alexa, he'd found the cave again at last (through the process of elimination of so many years, there weren't many places left to look) and happily retrieved his property. Only to then forget about the scrolls and tablets entirely after stuffing them in the basement of Shakespeare and Company. In his defense, he had a rough time dealing with MacLeod's Dark Quickening crisis and Alexa's death. He hadn't given the jars a second thought when, after the cellar flooded yet again, he'd moved his journal to a proper vault. Traveling to find the other volumes meant he just hadn't gotten around to copying any of that cave's contents yet.

Previously, it was a long process to make new copies of his journal volumes before the originals completely degraded. Transferring what he had typed up onto floppy discs and later to DVDs was blissfully easy, but he still had a lot he hadn't typed yet. He hoped whatever new technology that would replace the optical disc in the future would be as simple to copy them to. Upon the invention of the typewriter, he'd dedicated years translating many of the volumes he had. Getting all of that into the computer was something he'd put on hold until he'd typed up of the volumes that he'd never copied before. He'd hardly made a dent in what he had, many volumes were still missing and others were lost forever due to fire or rot.

Joining the Watchers in the 1980s had served many purposes, primarily to keep an eye on other Immortals and ensure the Watchers didn't track him down. But they'd also given him the credentials (always best to get the real thing first, makes faking them easier in future) to access archeology sites, legally transport antiques across borders and trained him in the latest techniques in handling and preserving antique documents. It was enormously useful in protecting his journal. MacLeod had forced him to resign from being Watcher Adam Pierson sooner than he'd planned and lost him some useful resources.

Now it appeared the Watchers had taken his scrolls. Methos could think of no one else who'd want them.

Last week, when he'd added updated DVDs of his journal to the vault, he'd remembered the scrolls waiting to be copied sitting there untouched in pottery. He'd randomly chose one jar (all he could carry since he hadn't come prepared for it). It had a distinctive long shape with a flat lid that someone knowledgeable about the ancient world would know was often used to transport scrolls in ancient times. Did the Watchers see him carrying the jar under his arm as he headed home?

They must have. Worse still, he hadn't noticed anyone following him. He spared a moment to call Joe, only to get his voice mail. A call to Le Blues Bar got him a bartender just opening up for lunch who informed him that Joe was on holiday in the States for something called Thanksgiving. No help from that quarter then, but at least he could be sure that Joe wasn't in trouble yet if Methos' worst fears were realized. Had the Watchers identified him as an Immortal or were just checking up on an ex-Watcher? Methos wasn't sure.

What he did know is _where_ they had taken his journals: Watcher Headquarters.

...o0o...

Dr. Amy Zoll the former Watcher of Marcus Constantine (until he lost his head) and previously Adam Pierson's supervisor was walking down a hall inside headquarters. She looked like a woman on a mission and in a hurry to get there with her cell phone to her ear.

"Circle the block again," she was instructing the person on the other end of the line. "He might be doubling back to lose you."

Well, Methos decided, he was definitely being watched then. It had to be recent though, only since he'd come back to Paris. He was sure no one followed him in the past year as he bounced around the world. Paris being a city rather full of Watchers, he supposed they just... watched for him until he returned.

He was dressed in the Adam Pierson disguise, sloppy sweater and jeans. No coat and no sword. Not that he was unarmed, but he didn't need to advertise the smaller weapons on his person. Her reaction upon the sight of him leaning against a pillar was everything he'd hoped for. Dr. Zoll gasped and took a step back hard, her heals making a racket on the marble floor and almost dropped her phone.

"Good morning," Methos said cheerfully.

"How did you get in?" was her first question.

"I'm fine thank you, how are you today?" he replied sarcastically. "I want the scrolls back, Zoll."

She didn't deny they'd taken them or scream for security to rescue her, for neither was in her nature. He knew that well after spending three years reporting to her during his time as a Watcher.

"We were going to return them," she said simply.

That confirmed they read some of the journals, but did they read enough to connect them with Immortals?

"Oh, was that the plan then? I wondered why you didn't trash my place."

If anything, she looked even more indignant and said, "We weren't going to destroy your property, only take back what we _thought_ was ours."

"No Chronicles were missing when I left the Watchers."

"Or you made it _look_ like none were gone," she accused him. "Edited the records to hide that you'd taken anything. When we saw you had scrolls, well, what else were we to think?"

"And when you couldn't find the Watcher emblem on them didn't that tell you otherwise?"

"We didn't know that until we got back here. We weren't going to unroll something so delicate in your house. What do you take me for?"

"So, upon learning they weren't Chronicles, you decided to what?"

"Give them back, like I said."

"When exactly? After I returned from the auction? By courier or post? You could have slipped them back into my house hours ago. What have you been doing with them all morning, Zoll?" he asked sarcastically.

Her face turned red with embarrassment, but again she was blunt and honest. "If you'd gone to the auction, we would have returned them without you ever being the _wiser_."

It was the way she said 'wiser', choosing that particular word rather than simply saying he wouldn't have known, that set Methos even more on edge. If they'd pegged him as an Immortal, worse as Methos, he didn't have to be nice about this.

"I'd have noticed that they were _interfered_ with," he snapped.

"_I'd_ say it was a fair trade, since you infiltrated us."

"I was recruited, same as the rest of you. Four Watchers flunked out of the antiquities program before Don Salzar was allowed to approach their classmates. Everyone turned him down, including me, the first time he asked. Half of your Egyptology staff retired or died before they could be replaced and you always need linguists. After his tale of woe, how could I refuse a second invitation to join the Watchers?"

"Don't make it sound like you were doing us a favor. You just wanted the chance to tamper with the Chronicles."

"I was a damn good researcher," Methos retorted hotly. "Every addition and correction I made was approved by you or Don because it was backed by substantial documentary evidence."

"Because you knew where to look?" she accused.

And that told him that Dr. Zoll at least suspected his real name. The Watchers shouldn't have enough information to draw that conclusion. Not from a few old scrolls they'd only had in their possession a matter of hours, too short a time to fully translate. Joe wouldn't have told them. Something else had to be going on.

Feeling reckless and more than a little amused at her expense, Methos asked, "Are you accusing me of joining the Watchers to get assigned to myself? Last I recall, Watchers have little say in which Immortal they get and I never put in a request for the Methos project." 

"You didn't have to, you got Dr. Salzar to recommend you. You should have revealed you were an Immortal when he first told you he was a Watcher."

"And give him a heart attack?"

"At least he wouldn't have endured years of you right under his nose."

"Are we talking about Don or yourself?"

Amy Zoll put her hands on her hips, as though that would somehow make her appear intimidating. "Well, you won't slip by us again," she shot back in a smug, satisfied tone. "You're in the _database_ now. Ironic since you wrote it."

"A database that could contain any number of back doors in the code to let me check up on the others or even remove myself from it someday from anywhere in the world."

"You're bluffing," she stated.

She was right, he was bluffing, but he wasn't going to confirm that for her. He wasn't lying about writing a secret access for himself in the code. He had, but some later programmer had long since removed it. That was why he'd had to physically sneak into Joe's bar to use his computer when Morgan Walker was after his head a few weeks ago.

"You don't have to use my database. It will only cost millions to build a new one now without reusing any of the old code. I did it for free and never once heard a thank you," he said archly. "Let's get the scrolls now, before things get unpleasant."

Dr. Zoll handled the veiled threat bravely. With her head held high, she swept past him saying, "This way."

As they moved through the building, across room after room filled with Watchers at their desks, Methos eyed them warily for any reaction. Most went about their jobs like normal. The few to look up as Dr. Zoll went by didn't give him a second glance. It was reassuring, but he wasn't about to relax just yet.

They stopped at last at one of the many rooms housing fragile collections, a logical choice Methos supposed. Like his vault, it was specially designed to keep everything well preserved and a door that sealed thoroughly. Two Watchers he didn't know and wearing white gloves were hovering over the rolled up scrolls sitting out on a tray. As they looked up, it was almost funny seeing their faces morph from shocked recognition to anger in unison.

"Amy... ?" the balding man on the left sputtered in question at Dr. Zoll.

"He sneaked in," she said, interrupting him shortly. "We're going to return the scrolls now without making a _scene_."

The way she cut her eyes at Methos as she said 'scene,' it was obvious she expected he was the more likely to cause a ruckus than any Watchers. Didn't want anyone to notice what was going on, did they? He grinned nastily at the men behind the table. The younger one moved to comply with a sour expression and fetch something from the cabinet behind him.

"How did you get in?" the other man demanded.

"Why does everyone keep asking that today?" Methos stated facetiously. "I'm sure you'll unravel the mystery later, but I will say your fence security has become quite lax."

As the young man turned around with the jar and handed to the bald Watcher four long boxes for holding the scrolls, Methos took a better look at his property.

"One is missing," he stated the obvious and looked back up at the Watchers. The guy holding the jar froze under his gaze, the older one gave a little huff of frustration and Dr. Zoll crossed her arms defensively. Did they think he wouldn't count his own scrolls? Were they hoping to hurry him out before he could realize one happened to be absent?

"Ah, of course," he said with a very fake smile. "It's in the copy room."

Feeling vindictive, Methos then snatched up the tray full of scrolls and strode out of the room. The three Watchers followed in his wake squawking about the proper handing of antique documents. Though he looked careless holding them, he kept the tray level so the scrolls wouldn't roll. He wasn't about to destroy them out of spite, but he didn't mind letting the Watchers think so.

Besides, they'd be less likely to shoot him or otherwise set up an ambush while he was holding the scrolls hostage. They wouldn't chance getting blood on them.

The copy room was exactly that, a large room full of the latest machines to duplicate anything with the written word on it. Not the common office copiers, but highly specialized devices to scan, photograph and x-ray fragile books. It didn't matter what material it was written on: animal skin, plant leaves, clay or stone, they could do it all.

A scattering of Watchers were currently employed around the room. Four machines for unrolling scrolls dominated the far side and Methos led the way to the only one in use.

"Good morning, Elspeth," he kindly greeted the gray haired lady by the table.

"Why, Adam!" she exclaimed turning away from the scroll to greet him. "How nice to see you."

She reached out automatically to hug him before stopping herself at the sight of the tray of scrolls in his arms. "Gloves, Adam," she chastised noticing his bare hands.

"Yes, ma'am," he said promptly, falling back into his Adam Pierson persona with ease. He gently set the tray of scrolls down on the side table and pulled on a pair of gloves from a nearby box. Elspeth only nodded to the three Watchers following him, but otherwise seemed unconcerned by their arrival _en masse_. She hugged Methos then and led him towards the scroll splayed out under the camera.

"Nice," he complimented the machine. "New rotor, I see."

"New camera, too," Elspeth said pointing at the cluster of lenses suspended above the scroll.

Methos played along, giving his journal a long look as it was slowly unfurled at one one end and was re-rolled again after each section was photographed. He was dismayed to see the script was in Latin, though he'd been in Egypt when he wrote it, he'd used more common language of the day. A pity he hadn't chosen something obscure or at least not so well known. If he'd used Hieroglyphics or Sanskrit, he could at least count on it taking the Watchers a few days to arrange for their few members who'd learned those languages to translate it for the rest of them. Instead, it was in a language that everyone studied in the Watcher Academy. Methos wracked his brain trying to remember what alias he'd used and if there was anything in the journal to connect them to him as Methos. But too many centuries had passed.

There was a monitor at the far end of the long table that he walked over to look at. The screen was divided to show the different types of scans being made simultaneously. Methos gazed at it in wonder at the level of detail revealed. "It can even see where corrections were made. Any idea who wrote it?"

Elspeth joined him at the screen. "Methos, possibly. Isn't that why you're here? You used to work on his Chronicles, didn't you?"

Methos only nodded. That answered his question about how much they'd learned from his journal and why Elspeth was so calm about his arrival. It was perfectly logical to invite a researcher, even retired ones (though not usually those booted out for disappearing, like he had), back inside temporarily to help confirm a discovery.

"Oh," she said suddenly, looking beyond Methos for a moment. "I don't know if you remember him, but this is my grandson, René."

She gestured around the other side of the large camera apparatus to point out a teenager, probably about seventeen or eighteen, slouching against a cabinet and listening to music with his eyes closed.

"René," she repeated his name louder. He opened one eye and removed an ear-bud, looking at her like she'd just interrupted something vitally important. "Come over here and greet my friend, Adam."

The teenager obeyed with obvious reluctance and couldn't have made it more clear that he didn't want to be here. Methos didn't recognize him and Elspeth didn't seem to really expect him to. For all he knew, she'd likely shown around his boyhood pictures like any grandmother would years ago and René looked to be fully grown now.

He also looked bored, but then he stopped and his eyes widened in surprise when he focused on Methos. "Yeah, I remember you now," René said and for a moment looked a little less miserable, almost happy to see Methos. "You played video games with me during that awful party three years ago."

"René!" his grandmother scolded. "Your parents were proud to host. It was an honor."

Now, Methos remembered the kid. It was an awful party, to be truthful. He'd finally risen enough in the ranks to be invited to a premier Watcher social gathering, only to be snubbed and side stepped the entire evening by them. Being the Methos Watcher was anything but glamorous since he hadn't allowed them to find him in centuries. Some treated such assignments like a joke, only a step above researching long deceased Immortals. Field Watchers were the stars in the organization. The only useful information Methos obtained at that party hadn't come from any of the Watchers themselves, but from the son of Watchers. Being a Watcher became something of a family tradition or business when generations inducted their children into it. He'd spotted the kid collecting some hors d'oeuvres and dodging around the guests to retreat to a connected solarium.

So, Methos, in his Adam Pierson persona, had looked through the glass door to find the boy in front of a tiny television and furiously pushing a game controller's buttons. The door was open, so Methos poked his head in and introduced himself. The kid had seemed relieved to meet a Watcher that wasn't 'old and stuffy.' He unabashedly told Methos that his parents ordered him to stay downstairs at the party to learn more about being a Watcher, but he'd sneaked down his game console instead. Methos commiserated, complimented the video game and promptly found himself sitting on the tiled floor with a spare game controller shoved in his hands. He 'died' more times playing that game than he had in reality in the last decade, but the wealth of information René revealed about his Watcher relatives and their Immortal assignments made it worth it.

"I'm sorry about him," Elspeth apologized to Methos and watched René walk away. "I brought him to work today to try to interest him more in what we do." She sighed adding, "And keep him out of trouble."

René stopped in his tracks and spun back around. "Why would I want to be a Watcher?" he asked scathingly. "Maybe if my parents weren't Watchers they wouldn't be getting a divorce."

"René, that is not why..." Elspeth began.

"No," he argued. "They're never home, always running off after their Immortals and leaving me with you. They don't care about anything but these damn books."

His shouting attracted the attention of the entire room, but what happened next Methos never would have predicted. Even had he realized in time, the whole table was in between them. He couldn't have moved fast enough to stop the boy.

René grabbed the four fragile scrolls at the end of the table and drop kicked the lot of them in a tantrum more suited to a toddler than nearly adult young man.

Elspeth screamed. Amy Zoll and her two Watchers tackled the boy to the floor. Every other Watcher in the room came running as bits of papyrus rained down on them all.

Woodenly, Methos walked over to the nearest piece of smashed scroll, crouched down and cradled it in his arms. It was split badly and new holes made from the duo impacts of shoe and floor would make it impossible to safely unroll it now. It would just disintegrate more making it a puzzle too insane reassemble. He expected the others were likely just as bad. Only the scroll currently in the machine was safe.

Methos looked up from the floor to see Elspeth checking her grandson for injury while berating him that, "This kind of behavior is exactly why you were suspended from school!"

Methos' eyes locked with René's. Whatever the boy saw in his expression made René freeze in the act of brushing himself off. The kid had shown contempt for his parents, no fear of the other Watchers nearby and he didn't respect his grandmother, but in that moment some primal instinct of self-preservation took over.

"Sorry," said René directly to Methos and he sounded surprised at his own apology. René looked like he'd suddenly remembered he was a mouse and discovered to his shock that there was a cat stalking him.

"Get him out of here," Zoll whispered frantically in Elspeth's ear and the woman didn't hesitate to haul the boy away from the room as fast as she could.

Methos felt everything and nothing in that moment. Regret that he'd not waited to put the scrolls back in their jar or the four boxes the Watchers had presented. Or better, had left them in the other room to retrieve last. Had it really been necessary to carry them exposed like that on the very slim chance that a Watcher might assault him? If only he'd kept a better eye on his surroundings, then he'd have known the Watchers were following him around town these past few weeks. He'd never have led them to his vault if he'd known. If, if, if...

"Don't hurt the boy," Dr. Zoll warned, breaking into Methos' thoughts.

For a moment he was puzzled by her words. Turning his attention back to the Watchers he saw that the two with Zoll had moved forward with her to form a human barrier between him and Elspeth's retreat with her grandson. He counted seven others present in the room working to pick up the damaged papyrus and exchanging confused looks with each other.

Feeling exasperated and very tired, Methos said, "If you're going to plead for René's life or limbs, I suggest you apply to his grandmother. I don't do revenge."

Zoll eyed him and asked, "Is that so?"

Of course, she didn't believe him, but he supposed it could be worse. She probably would twist his next words around to make it sound like a mere mortal was beneath his notice no matter what the boy's behavior was. Which wasn't too far off, but still wasn't the truth. Methos simply had more important things to do, like salvage this fiasco.

"Indeed," he said. "Revenge is usually repaid in kind. Besides, it takes so much _effort_."

No to mention that battling a large, well organized group of people who knew how to kill him permanently was not something he was going to risk over a few volumes of his journal he'd almost given up for lost in the desert anyway.

He stood up putting the destroyed scroll aside and turned his attention to the intact one on the machine. It had finished being scanned and was neatly re-rolled, so he carefully extracted it and put it in a long, padded box that he'd spotted on a shelf below the table. The Watchers predictably watched him do it.

"Well," he said to fill the awkward silence that followed. "I'll be going now. I'd say enjoy your scans, but you'll likely just be more upset that you didn't get the other four when you are done reading this one."

There was a pause and Methos began to walk around the table, keeping it between him and the Watchers as he made his way along the wall towards the door.

"We did, get them I mean," said Dr. Zoll suddenly confessed before he could leave.

"How?"

"Four machines, five scrolls. The others were scanned first."

Methos could only gape at her, genuinely caught by surprise. He knew by now that they hadn't planned ahead to scan them immediately. After all, they'd thought the scrolls were their own property. A quick examination to determine which storage room they belonged in was probably all Dr. Zoll had intended to do today. Upon discovering they were an Immortal's journal, she must have gained permission very swiftly to commandeer all of the machines.

"I'll ask the Tribunal about mailing you a copy of them," she said.

It was a peace offering. Not a promise, but he knew given the circumstances the Watcher Tribunal would agree to it. He'd stick Joe Dawson on them if they didn't.

"I'd like that," Methos said in what he liked to call his 'best friend' voice.

"If I could ask," Dr. Zoll responded in the nicest, most polite tone he'd heard her use all day. "Why did you bring the scrolls to your house?"

"To copy and translate them," Methos told her simply. "Same as you."

"Are there more journals?"

"You searched my house, you know there aren't," he evaded.

"Are there more wherever you obtained these?" she clarified.

So, maybe they hadn't seen him at his vault. Plenty of Watchers didn't follow their Immortal's every footstep, not when they were certain they already knew what the Immortal was doing. Tagging along on such mundane things as grocery trips and such were the bane of a Watchers existence. Perhaps they'd only seen him enter his house with the scroll jar and not where he'd come from with it.

Methos gave her and the other Watchers an amused smile taunting them saying, "Wouldn't you like to know?"

As he left Watcher Headquarters, he spotted no less than three Watchers following him and had a bad feeling there was at least one or two he didn't see thanks to long lenses and other modern technology.

Author's Notes:

Another old story that I'd never finished or posted before now sees the light of day. All the stuff about the scrolls is totally made up and I have no idea how long it takes to really photograph them. I tried to keep the tech level correct for the late 90s. Had to wrack my brain trying to remember when I last had a giant CPU tower, when I first got a thumb drive and stopped burning DVDs.

Thank you for reading and please leave me a review. :)


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